


Your Crooked Neighbour

by Still_and_Clear



Series: In the Basin [8]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection, Romance, endless reminiscing because I can't write direct speech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1948674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_and_Clear/pseuds/Still_and_Clear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick reflects on his relationship with Freddie Lounds</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Crooked Neighbour

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, a happy Frederick! There's likely to be one more chapter from Freddie's perspective. As always, thanks for reading.

Stooping slightly, Frederick peered at the brightly-coloured spot on his otherwise immaculate white table. What shade was that anyway? Violet? Mulberry? All he could say with confidence was that it was most definitely Freddie Lounds’ nail polish, a drop she had spilled while volubly protesting her ability to paint her nails at his pristine table without making a mess.

He straightened up, and felt the same little glow of pleasure that flickered in him each time he found evidence of her presence in his house. At first, it had been objects she had brought over for their meetings: a bottle of wine, a box that had held pastries, and – most memorably – a Tupperware container full of a virulently bright pink mush that had turned out to be her homemade beetroot hummus. Over the months, as things had.... changed, the objects had gradually become more intimate, and when a bottle of her precious curl serum had found its way into his bathroom, prosaic and silly as it might have seemed to anyone else, he had felt his heart beat a triumphant little tattoo in his chest.

Pouring himself a generous glass of wine – he had finally managed to walk shakily past the guestroom on stiff legs to reach his wine cellar – he settled himself on his sofa and indulged himself in revisiting the last few months. Frederick’s reveries were usually about as pleasant as a lengthy visit to the dentist, but the recent happy changes in his fortunes had led to reasonably frequent sessions of reminiscing with a look on his face that Freddie had described as ‘slightly glazed, and a little smirky’.

Their meetings had continued after the hospital, in a quiet vegetarian place that Freddie had described as one of her favourites. The article had progressed slowly: he was nervous, after recent events, of further damage to his reputation, but Freddie had been persistent in her opinion that the best way to move on was to take charge of his own story – that Hannibal Lecter was only a supporting player in his narrative – a surprisingly comforting thought that had made him tell her she would have made a good therapist, which had – in turn – made Freddie snort green tea down her nose.

They had been at what should have been their last meeting, polishing the details had made for a very long lunch. The conversation was starting to trail to a halt, and Frederick had been fiddling miserably with his cutlery, and mentally sorting through which of his rehearsed reasons for continuing to see each other sounded least desperate, when Freddie had asked if he would like a master class in vegetarian cookery? She had noticed, she said, that he seemed to enjoy the food there, and she was eager to keep him an enlightened vegetarian, like her. He had felt his smile stretch wide enough to show his teeth, and had watched an answering smile flit across her face in return. It was only later - lying in bed with his hands clasped behind his head - that he wondered whether, while he had been agonising over the best way to broach the issue, the indefatigable Miss Lounds hadn’t been planning her own pursuit all along.

This new working hypothesis had made him nervous about their cookery lesson. She had invited him to her apartment, preferring – she said – to work in her own kitchen. Nerves had made him fuss over his clothes, and by the time he had knocked at her door, bearing a bunch of flowers, he had been positively flustered – only worsened by the softening of her eyes when he had abruptly thrust the bouquet at her. She had disappeared into the kitchen to search for a vase, giving him a welcome opportunity to compose himself, and let his gaze wander curiously over her apartment. Saturated colours and patterns everywhere– of course – that much was evident in her clothes. Film Noir posters framed on the wall. An overstuffed bookcase in the corner and - oddly sentimental for his idea of Freddie - a vintage typewriter on a side table where anyone else would have had a vase of flowers. For such a restless, searching person, it was an oddly restful space – or maybe he just found her soothing.

He had blushed a little as she returned to the room and cut off this rather revealing train of thought, placing the flower-filled vase on the coffee table. She had asked him, grinning slyly, what he thought of her apartment, and had laughed outright at his visible consternation as he groped for an appropriate response. Deciding to fall back on his usual superciliousness, he had looked down his nose at her and called it bohemian, softening the assessment with a lopsided smile. This seemed to satisfy her, and she had motioned him to follow her into the kitchen. He had followed, although maybe a little too eagerly, as when she had paused and turned to say something he had bumped into her – a pleasant tingle running through his muscles at the sudden contact. He had opened his mouth to apologise, but had found that Freddie’s avid blue eyes on his seemed somehow to have forced all the air from his lungs, and could only acquiesce when her slim fingers had wrapped round his tie and tugged him towards her, grazing her lips over his in a glancing kiss, before pulling back to regard him with a pleased, thoughtful expression on her shrewd face.

After that, the cookery lesson had been a touch farcical. Frederick had been all fingers and thumbs, spilling anything he didn’t drop – his nervy clumsiness a reminder of why a surgical career would have been singularly ill-advised. For her part, Freddie was clearly enjoying teasing him – covering his hands with hers to demonstrate even the simplest techniques, her eyes turned wicked and knowing when she realised that he was gazing at her without listening to a word, like a love-struck teenager. Provoked by her audacity, and seized by a sudden panic that he hadn’t responded obviously enough to her kiss, and what if she thought he wasn’t interested – he had decided to cap off the lesson by pressing her suddenly against the kitchen counter and kissing her fervently. He had eyed her anxiously as he drew back, only reassured by the slow smile creeping over her face as she looked at him. She had taken his hand, then, and walked them both to her sofa, where they had spent a blissful afternoon while their dreadful meal had slowly burned in the kitchen.

Draining the last of his wine, his face flushed by the alcohol and the memory, he found himself marvelling that the weeks and months since that day had been so smooth, so effortless. There had been a few awkward moments. Once, letting his insecurities get the better of him, he had blurted out as they watched a movie that he was afraid the other shoe would drop – that she would suddenly turn to him and say that it had all been some elaborate ruse in the pursuit of some scoop – leaving him utterly alone, without even being able to resort to the comfort of her face during his Gideon flashbacks. There had been a tense silence, then she had bitten her lip and looked at him carefully, and he could have kicked himself for the hurt that had flashed across her face, almost too fleeting for him to see. She had answered, evenly, and candidly, that while she had used sex in the past if it had helped her in her pursuit of a story – she had never gone to the lengths of creating an entire relationship, and what would the point of that be, when the story was already in print? Her chin had tilted upwards and her blue eyes had challenged him, refusing to be ashamed of her ambition and past actions – Freddie was singularly shameless, he had found. He had apologised, then, gripping her hands tightly as if to convince her of his sincerity. For no possible reason he could understand, she had simply smiled at him and settled herself comfortably against his shoulder to watch the rest of the movie.

He rose from the sofa and limped back over to the nail polish mark on his table, enjoying this tangible evidence of how her colour and noise and warmth had bloomed in his white house, like paint in water. The light had dulled outside, but as Frederick chose not to ruminate gloomily in darkened rooms these days, he moved to turn on the lamps, and chased the shadows away.


End file.
